Discover Ancient Rhythm & Bass
A hands-on music-making course for all levels, set in the magical ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ Matera · 8–12 December 2025
Led by Lukas de Clerck (aulos), Stef Conner (voice and melodizing Ancient Greek verse), Pino Basile (frame drum), Barnaby Brown (aulos and ancient Greek music theory for performers), Marco Sciascia (making bass auloi), and Olga Sutkowska (archaeo-musicology of bass auloi)
Report
Participants and tutors all enjoyed a short but productive week both in terms of research and instrument production. The week centred around an original pipe held by the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la città metropolitana di Milano called ‘Sambon 3’. First, Olga presented the original find to us and introduced us to mechanised auloi in general; then, Marco and Barnaby led us in making 6 experimental reconstructions using Sambon 3 as the low pipe and supplementing it with a scaled version of the Louvre to create the high pipe. We also produced a large quantity of reeds for the instruments in Avena sterilis (wild oat straw).
Olga and Marco also developed a hypothesis for how some of the mechanisms on bass auloi were operated which has been published on our Patreon.
We also explored a new rhythmic interpretation of Pindar’s 2nd Olympian ode with Barnaby and Pino using dance and Konnakol. A performance of this featuring Lukas on bass ‘Louvre’ aulos, Pino on frame drum, and Asja Montemurro on 7–string lyre has been published on our YouTube channel and is available here.
The climax of the week was a performance from Lukas on the bass ‘Louvre’ aulos in the ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ Matera’s subterranean sanctuary.
Brochure
The heart of this course is the bass aulos – a roaring instrument that once led worship, dance, and theatrical festivities from Afghanistan to the Atlantic. Together with thundering frame drums, the organ-like “Phrygian” doublepipe was the voice of the Mother of the Gods. Revered for its booming sound, it was also associated with Dionysus, the “Lord of the Dance”.
Guided by leading artists and scholars, you’ll explore how metre, breath, and vibration shaped ancient song and dance through practical sessions in voice, rhythm, and embodied metre. Open to all – singers, dancers, lyre-players, percussionists, scholars and enthusiasts, as well as aulos players. Discover the soundscape that filled the Phrygianum (the Vatican before Christianity) and the Greek temples of Magna Grecia (when Dionysianism was the leading state religion).
Join us in the timeless setting of Moyseion’s pre-Christian sanctuaries and, if you wish, you can make a bass aulos to take home. You’ll be part of a creative community, guided by tutors who bring scholarship and artistry together in ways you won’t find anywhere else.
- Explore ancient music in practice: building, playing, composing, and performing.
- 24 hours of tutor time with world-leading specialists in doublepipes, ancient Greek rhythm, voice, stagecraft, and music-making based on ancient evidence.
- Sing or play your instrument with the amazing bass aulos.
- Take home a bass aulos, built under expert guidance, in a tube as long as will fit in your suitcase!
- Develop your performing skills through one-to-one lessons and group coaching.
- Throughout the week, enjoy collaborative performances alongside tutors and fellow participants in Moyseion Matera’s magical setting.
A once-in-a-lifetime setting for ancient music
What makes this course unforgettable isn’t just the sound at its centre, but the people and collective connection, synchronizing with something beyond us. The booming bass aulos gathers voices, bodies, and breath into a shared pulse, just as it once did in ancient ritual and theatre. In the carved stone spaces of Matera, its presence is both grounding and electrifying. With a maximum of 16 participants, the course creates space for deep listening, experimentation, and playful collaboration. You’ll be part of a creative community exploring rhythm and bass as shared spirit – responsive, surprising, and alive.
This is the second course in the annual winter training programme developed by Lotos Lab for the ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ Matera and open to all. Each month, from November–March, the course gathers energy from different specialists, allowing participants to tailor unique pathways, breathing life into ancient Greek musical remains.
What participants say:
“I very much enjoyed the “experience first” based approach that mimics the aural tradition.”
“It is wonderful to be taught to practise in a way that supports your body and your health, rather than being a painful and unpleasant chore. Focusing on how different bits of your body feel, how to be completely with yourself and your body. And it’s fun: it stops practice being a miserable experience!”
“Having the individual instructor feedback is excellent and the information content is top tier.”
All the practical info
Dates and times
8–12 December 2025 (3 whole days + 2 half-days)
15:00 – 15:45 Physical warm-up and introduction to the course with Barnaby Brown
15:45 – 18:45 Sign up to the masterclass of your choice, focusing on what YOU want to develop:
- Aulos reed making with Marco Sciascia, Barnaby Brown, and Olga Sutkowska
- Stef Conner (vocal coaching, self accompaniment, stagecraft, melodizing Ancient Greek texts)
- Pino Basile (rhythm skills, frame drum playing)
- Lukas De Clerck (aulos playing, circular breathing)
18:00 – 18:45 Water Sanctuary ritual for ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ residents (max 6 people)
19:00 – 20:00 Symposium (period dress compulsory! Ancient Greek chitons will be provided)
20:00 Welcome meal at Le Botteghe (a fixed price of €7 or €12 for Lotos Lab participants continues throughout the week for lunch and evening meals)
10:00 – 10:45 Physical warm-up and vocal training with Stef Conner
10:45 – 13:00 Small group and individual lessons / Aulos pipe making
15:30 – 16:15 Physical warm-up and rhythm training with Pino Basile
16:15 – 18:45 Small group and individual lessons / Aulos side tube making
18:00 – 18:45 Water Sanctuary ritual for ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ residents (max 6 people)
19:00 – 20:00 Symposium (period dress compulsory! Ancient Greek chitons will be provided)
10:00 – 10:45 Lotos Lab rhythm workouts for dancers, singers, and instrumentalists – developing core competencies for molpe (metres, ensemble timing, and enthousiasmos of singing and dancing from Alcman to Euripides). Session 1 led by Barnaby Brown
10:45 – 13:00 Small group and individual lessons / Phorbeia making
15:30 – 16:15 Lotos Lab rhythm workouts 2 led by Stef Conner
16:15 – 18:45 Small group and individual lessons / rehearsals
18:00 – 18:45 Water Sanctuary ritual for ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ residents (max 6 people)
19:00 – 20:00 Symposium (period dress compulsory! Ancient Greek chitons will be provided)
10:00 – 10:45 Lotos Lab rhythm workouts 3 led by Pino Basile
10:45 – 13:00 Small group and individual lessons / rehearsals
15:30 – 16:15 Presentation by Lukas De Clerck
16:15 – 18:45 Small group and individual lessons / rehearsals
18:00 – 18:45 Water Sanctuary ritual for ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ residents (max 6 people)
19:00 – 20:00 Symposium (period dress compulsory! Ancient Greek chitons will be provided)
10:00 – 11:00 Presentation by Olga Sutkowska
11:00 – 13:00 Performances sharing everything developed during the course: ensembles and solos; instruments, singing, and dancing
13:00 Farewell lunch at Le Botteghe
Location
ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ Matera, Via Gradelle S. Nicola del Sole, 3, Sassi di Matera, Italy
What’s included
- Tuition (24 hours in total)
- Materials to build your own bass aulos (and take it home in a custom case)
- Thorough grounding in the core skills of molpe, the cathartic singing and dancing in which every member of ancient Greek society participated
Who’s it for?
Open to beginners, enthusiasts, and experienced musicians alike. No prior instrument-making skills required.
Course fees
- Standard £690 (early birds £550) Covers all of your tuition and EITHER the materials to take home a working bass aulos OR extra hours of small group and individual lessons: 24 hours of formal tutor time.
- Supporter £875 (early birds £700) In addition to the above, help us provide access for all, enable us to run more of these events with world-class tutors, and to create more music for you.
- Discounted £500 (early birds £400) For participants who cannot afford the standard rate.
Early bird discount ends 22 November. The course fee does not include refreshments, meals, or accommodation. Rooms are available at the Moyseion at a special reduced rate for course participants staying 4+ nights: €90 for single occupancy, €115 for double occupancy per night (over 50% off). This includes the Water Sanctuary Ritual, use of magnificent subterranean pools (a sacred space dedicated to the goddess Demeter with replicas of archaeological finds), and sumptuous breakfast carefully curated by food anthropologists and historians. Unforgettable! To book, please contact: info@moyseion.com / +39 0835 197 1880.
Meet the tutors!
Lukas De Clerck is a sound artist, performer, and researcher pioneering the revival of ancient Greek aulos in contemporary music. His unique practice blends reed-making, replica performance, and sonic experimentation, often using a modern telescopic aulos of his own design. Lukas has performed at festivals including Rewire, Sonic Acts, and Gaudeamus, and was selected for SHAPE+ 2024, a European platform for innovative music and art. He collaborates with artists and composers across disciplines and recently released his debut solo album on Ideologic Organ. With a distinctive mix of curiosity, rigour, and play, he brings the powerful, layered sound of the aulos into the present – inviting listeners to hear antiquity anew.
Stef Conner is a composer, singer, and researcher whose work reimagines the sounds of the ancient world through contemporary performance. Described as ‘brutal but harmonically radiant’ (The Guardian), she combines scholarly interpretation with sonic imagination, drawing on Mesopotamian, Greek, and medieval sources. As a performer, she has toured internationally with The Unthanks, Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening, and Sequentia. As a composer, she has written for ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Ligeti Quartet, and Marian Consort. Her albums The Flood and Riddle Songs have been acclaimed for their fusion of historical language, reconstructed instruments, and emotional depth. She is a Lecturer in Music at the University of York, where she teaches courses in composition, singing, and Early music.
Pino Basile is a percussionist and educator acclaimed for his mastery of frame drums and tamburello traditions from Southern Italy. Known for both virtuosity and versatility, he moves fluidly between folk, contemporary, and experimental contexts, collaborating with leading ensembles and theatre productions across Europe. Drawing on deep roots in Mediterranean rhythm, he brings an embodied, physical approach to music-making, training ensembles through movement and sound. His teaching and performance unite ancestral traditions with contemporary creativity, making him a sought-after guide for exploring rhythm as a whole-body practice.
Barnaby Brown is a performer-researcher whose work bridges scholarship, instrument reconstruction, and creative practice. Internationally recognised for reviving ancient polyphonic pipes and early Scottish bagpipes, he combines deep historical knowledge with a passion for performance. His collaborations span universities, conservatoires, and leading ensembles, where he shares expertise in ancient musical craft, tuning systems, and vocabelising: how to “sing” the pipes. A co-founder of Lotos Lab, he creates projects that bring ancient soundscapes to life, balancing rigorous research with imaginative artistry. Barnaby is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Marco Sciascia is a maker of ancient musical instruments and researcher, specializing in reconstructions based on archaeological remains and historical sources. With a background in goldsmithing, he began combining traditional craft with modern lutherie in the early 2000s to recreate instruments from ancient Europe and the Near East. His playable reconstructions balance historical accuracy with musical usability, meeting the needs of both scholars and performers. His work has been featured in the European Music Archaeology Project, and he has collaborated with major museums and institutions, including the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Turin’s Museo Egizio to bring ancient sounds to contemporary audiences.
Olga Sutkowska is a Polish musicologist and performer devoted to music-archaeological research on ancient doublepipes. She received a PhD from Berlin University of the Arts and her dissertation on the auloi/tibiae keying mechanisms won the annual prize of the German Musicological Society. A professionally trained oboist, Olga’s explorations of the musical possibilities of auloi can be heard on the CD “Apollo and Dionysus” (Delphian Records, 2018). She helped to plan and design the European Music Archaeology Project (EMAP) and coordinated its doublepipe revival team, cofounding the “Workshop of Dionysus” (www.doublepipes.info). She was previously a post-doc researcher at the Austrian Archaeological Institute, and is now a research associate at the State Institute for Music Research in Berlin.
About the setting
The course takes place in ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ Matera, a unique cultural space in the heart of Matera’s ancient Sassi district. This feature article in The Guardian is one of many that have appeared in recent months. Moyseion is part living museum, part creative laboratory: a place where archaeology, music, and imagination meet. Its stone interiors and carefully curated reconstructions evoke thousands of years of human history, offering an inspiring setting in which to explore ancient music.
Workshops unfold in spaces designed to heighten a sense of connection – to the past, to Mother Nature (after which Matera is named), and to each other. Here, the architecture itself shapes the experience, turning every session into a dialogue between musicians and the deep past.
Only 16 places available: reserve now to avoid missing out. Early bird discount (20% off) ends 22 November.
Got a question? Email us at: events@lotos-lab.com
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A collaboration between Lotos Lab and ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ Matera
Lotos Lab: +44 78 1000 1377 • events@lotos-lab.com • www.lotos-lab.com
ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ: +39 0835 197 1880 • info@moyseion.com • www.moyseion.com